My Amusing Future As An Author

When I first started writing, I was crazy about classical music.  I had been crazy about piano music, but now I was getting interested in choral music, and chamber music---trios, string quartets, and so on--- and I had discovered that I was interested in girls, and in art.  And Sci Fi, and fantasy.

I was just heading into college, but living at home.  Somehow, I stumbled into the idea that I would write a story about a girl who was interested in all the things that I was interested in, but was a lot better at all of them.  I was partly wanting to create a girl to act out all that I wanted to do, but also to create a girl with whom I could fall in love.  This was Helen. 

As Helen grew and developed, some of her adventures turned out to be just fantastic achievements, others became sex fantasies, just for me.  As time went on, I became more interested in the musical parts of what Helen was doing.  And then, I became interested in publishing the Helen story anonymously.  By this time I had been teaching, and I was thoroughly embarrassed about my hobby of writing fantasies--- you know what kind they were--- so I started going through the entire thing, cleaning it up, when I got busted!  But, unexpectedly, the one who had discovered a few pages of manuscript simply loved it, and encouraged me to publish it. 

Until this time, Helen was my secret friend, and she could do anything she wanted.  A soon as the idea of making her adventures public came into my head, it became a completely different thing.  Also, I was becoming an adult, and now Helen wanted to fall in love, and not just have sex with various girls.  One wonderful day, I selected a self- contained portion of the story, and published it. 

For the first time, I was eager for people to read it.  Not desperately eager, but still anxious for an audience!  By this time, most of the enormous Helen story was already written, and I was parcelling out the story, trying to create publishable packets.  My statistics (how many people had downloaded the books) became important to me.   I also wrote other stories, and watched how they did.  It was never my main goal to become an author, but of all the things I did--- not very well--- writing seemed to be the best. 

This was a strange state of affairs, and I didn't know what to think about it, and it remains how things are to this day.  I don't depend on the income from writing for living; I have other sources of income.  But I certainly do take an interest in the "sales figures", for no good reason. 

Kay